Orchid exists to save men's lives from testicular, prostate and penile cancers through pioneering research and promoting awareness

Key achievements

With almost twenty years of experience funding research of the highest quality, Orchid has delivered a number of groundbreaking achievements for male cancer patients in the UK and across the globe.

Here follows a selection:

The Development of The Orchid Tissue Bank – an international resource for cancer research analysis contains the largest collection of penile cancers in a tissue array in Europe. It is now one of the largest testicular tissue banks in the world and is custodian of the most important series of untreated prostate cancers.

Helping to validate two ‘tissue proliferation’ markers that may be used to predict a patient’s risk of dying from prostate cancer, helping the patient to choose his treatment – these may be used in standard practice in the clinic in the next few years.

The introduction of the single shot carboplatin regime following surgery instead of the more toxic radiotherapy as the standard treatment for this stage of testicular cancer disease.

New highly successful treatments for men with aggressive testicular cancers – part of the reason that 98% of men survive the disease when it’s caught early.

A new treatment for prostate cancer involving the use of chemotherapy in hormone resistant patients, enabling intermittent hormone therapy to be re-introduced.

The identification of new factors such as the gene Ki-67 as markers of prostate cancer aggressiveness.

The identification of different genomic changes in prostate cancer between Chinese and Western patients and considering the genetic risk factors which may explain the differences in cancer incidence between these two ethnicities. This may lead to the application of different, more targeted treatment strategies, based on ethnicity.

The discovery that the gene ZDHHC14 is often damaged in cases of testicular and prostate cancer.

The discovery that the risk of testis cancer is increased in people with HIV.